Dear Anyone,
So, it's been quiet around the Etsy shop. I'm not going to lie, it's a little discouraging. I've got 40 items up and 1 sale. Now, I will say that I've only been at this for exactly one month and ten days but I am an incredibly impatient lady!
Sometimes it's hard to hear, "Oh your shop is so beautiful! Oh, I love all your items!" but it just seems like no one is buying at the moment. So I'm making ego-excuses for the slow sales. "Oh no, it's just that everyone is still post holiday broke!" and "My colors are really suited to spring and summer, maybe people are waiting for the jewelry to really be in season?"
Simon Cowell is chiming in too, "It's crap. It doesn't even warrant the time it would take me to mock it properly. It mocks itself with it's very existence."
I'm going to keep at it, though. I'm going to re-edit all my short and lazy descriptions and get around to making more items, and then actually posting them. I've just got to get the damn beading bug back!
I think it might all turn out alright if I just smile and wait.
So I'm going to smile, think happy thoughts and do some more stress relieving yoga.
Wish me luck!
Yours,
the little miss milyssabeth
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Marketing... oh the horrors!
So, back to the battle of the beads v. me!
At this point, I have about 100 pictures. I'm not exaggerating. Flipping through them is like flipping through your grandparent's scrapbook of their Aruba trip. "Oh look, a beach. Oh look, another beach. Oh look, my grandfather in a funny hat. Oh look, a beach..." only this times it's "Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, the other necklace I made..."
I have to weed through the pictures to find the absolute best ones of each item and I'm really splitting hairs at this point. I have to get 20-30 down to five. It's like American Idol, but I have no Ryan Seacrest to announce which ones to vote off. Delete, Delete. I do, however, have an internal Simon Cowell who chimes in around now.
"Seriously, that necklace is bloody awful. What were you thinking? No one will ever love that piece. It's like the red headed step child of the jewelry world. Why did you think it was great? Why on earth did you like that? To be frank, that bracelet reminds me of armpits. Unwashed armpits. You have no taste. You are NOT going to Hollywood."
I muscle through and start editing anyways. It gets tedious to go through each picture, it's an endless cycle of:
Crop. Resize. Lighten. Change saturation. Change brightness. Change contrast. Sharpen. Hold item up to computer screen. Does the picture match the actual color? If the answer is no, please turn to page one and start over. If the answer is yes, please turn to page one and start over with the next picture. This is most definitely not an adventure I would have chosen.
The worst part is yet to come! Oh... the posting... (dun, dun, dunnnnn)
Here's where I have to do the fantastic math to price the items. Ok- material cost + overhead (10%-15% of material cost) + my "hourly wage" ($15 an hour) TIMES 2-3.
Whhaaaat?? No way. Too much. I can't price it that high!
Math re-do. Material cost + Overhead (5%) + Hourly wage ($9 an hour) TIMES 2.
Nu-uh. No way. Still too much.
Math re-do. Material cost + Hourly wage ($4 an hour) TIMES 1.5
Um... Minus $5.00....
Okay, I've reached a price where I think people will buy and I'm working for half of minimum wage. I post that and click next. Oh, the description. Etsy advice from veterans:
"Keep it simple, don't overwhelm the buyer"
"Describe the item in detail, as though there were no picture"
"Be as thorough as you can! Short desciptions don't sell"
Alright. So I post what I hope is a dreamy and fun description of the item with Simon Cowell ranting in my head, calling me a cheeseball and telling me that I have to remember to include centimeters in the dimensions because the British are people too. He's also mocking the fact that I cannot get a single description written without the words "mix", blend", delicious", and "beautiful". I am no longer describing a necklace, I've drifted into a recipe for angel food cake. I cut myself off before I start to type "add two cups of flour".
Upload the pictures, click the blue FINISH and then the waiting begins.
I click over to my public shop and stare at the views. Click Refresh. Still at 0 views. 30 seconds pass. Click Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. Crap. Refresh. 0.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Endlessly.
The first view is a little victory dance of joy. It's after about half an hour after this that I share it on facebook, twitter and stumbleupon.
There is a lot more clicking, refreshing, and a little bit of the pook face. My boyfriend looks annoyed, my soul mate (my cat Loki) tries to sit on the laptop because I have been ignoring him for a full day. I remove him and continue to click until roughly midnight.
Then I get up the next day and the process starts anew.
I look forward to beading time more than I can express. I love picking the colors, I love the act of creating something that is going to make someone feel a little more beautiful. I go through all the posting and clicking of both my camera and my laptop for the peace of little beads sliding down a silverplated wire. I risk the trip to the nuthouse courtesy of my befuddled neighbors so I can have the chance to make you something. Because I like you. Really, I know we don't know each other but I really am a cheeseball just like internal Simon Cowell says. So I guess this is farewell for now and I hope to be back soon.
Yours-
-the little miss milyssabeth
PS. To avoid all confusion: The shop's name is La Femme D'Esprit. My official name is Melissa. My nickname or nom de plume in all things creative is the little miss milyssabeth. People do occasionally call me this. People also occasionally call me Michelle as well, but that's just because they are bad with names and I usually tell them that I will answer to most "M" related names. So there you go.
At this point, I have about 100 pictures. I'm not exaggerating. Flipping through them is like flipping through your grandparent's scrapbook of their Aruba trip. "Oh look, a beach. Oh look, another beach. Oh look, my grandfather in a funny hat. Oh look, a beach..." only this times it's "Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, the other necklace I made..."
I have to weed through the pictures to find the absolute best ones of each item and I'm really splitting hairs at this point. I have to get 20-30 down to five. It's like American Idol, but I have no Ryan Seacrest to announce which ones to vote off. Delete, Delete. I do, however, have an internal Simon Cowell who chimes in around now.
"Seriously, that necklace is bloody awful. What were you thinking? No one will ever love that piece. It's like the red headed step child of the jewelry world. Why did you think it was great? Why on earth did you like that? To be frank, that bracelet reminds me of armpits. Unwashed armpits. You have no taste. You are NOT going to Hollywood."
I muscle through and start editing anyways. It gets tedious to go through each picture, it's an endless cycle of:
Crop. Resize. Lighten. Change saturation. Change brightness. Change contrast. Sharpen. Hold item up to computer screen. Does the picture match the actual color? If the answer is no, please turn to page one and start over. If the answer is yes, please turn to page one and start over with the next picture. This is most definitely not an adventure I would have chosen.
The worst part is yet to come! Oh... the posting... (dun, dun, dunnnnn)
Here's where I have to do the fantastic math to price the items. Ok- material cost + overhead (10%-15% of material cost) + my "hourly wage" ($15 an hour) TIMES 2-3.
Whhaaaat?? No way. Too much. I can't price it that high!
Math re-do. Material cost + Overhead (5%) + Hourly wage ($9 an hour) TIMES 2.
Nu-uh. No way. Still too much.
Math re-do. Material cost + Hourly wage ($4 an hour) TIMES 1.5
Um... Minus $5.00....
Okay, I've reached a price where I think people will buy and I'm working for half of minimum wage. I post that and click next. Oh, the description. Etsy advice from veterans:
"Keep it simple, don't overwhelm the buyer"
"Describe the item in detail, as though there were no picture"
"Be as thorough as you can! Short desciptions don't sell"
Alright. So I post what I hope is a dreamy and fun description of the item with Simon Cowell ranting in my head, calling me a cheeseball and telling me that I have to remember to include centimeters in the dimensions because the British are people too. He's also mocking the fact that I cannot get a single description written without the words "mix", blend", delicious", and "beautiful". I am no longer describing a necklace, I've drifted into a recipe for angel food cake. I cut myself off before I start to type "add two cups of flour".
Upload the pictures, click the blue FINISH and then the waiting begins.
I click over to my public shop and stare at the views. Click Refresh. Still at 0 views. 30 seconds pass. Click Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. Crap. Refresh. 0.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Endlessly.
The first view is a little victory dance of joy. It's after about half an hour after this that I share it on facebook, twitter and stumbleupon.
There is a lot more clicking, refreshing, and a little bit of the pook face. My boyfriend looks annoyed, my soul mate (my cat Loki) tries to sit on the laptop because I have been ignoring him for a full day. I remove him and continue to click until roughly midnight.
Then I get up the next day and the process starts anew.
I look forward to beading time more than I can express. I love picking the colors, I love the act of creating something that is going to make someone feel a little more beautiful. I go through all the posting and clicking of both my camera and my laptop for the peace of little beads sliding down a silverplated wire. I risk the trip to the nuthouse courtesy of my befuddled neighbors so I can have the chance to make you something. Because I like you. Really, I know we don't know each other but I really am a cheeseball just like internal Simon Cowell says. So I guess this is farewell for now and I hope to be back soon.
Yours-
-the little miss milyssabeth
PS. To avoid all confusion: The shop's name is La Femme D'Esprit. My official name is Melissa. My nickname or nom de plume in all things creative is the little miss milyssabeth. People do occasionally call me this. People also occasionally call me Michelle as well, but that's just because they are bad with names and I usually tell them that I will answer to most "M" related names. So there you go.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Making v. Marketing.
Hello Folks!
So I'm struggling with the dual nature of this beading business beast...
It seems like a constant struggle between the creative process and the selling half of things; it's like being two people at once!
Making: So here I am, back on the bead eating couch, happy as a clam with my three tackle boxes and one tin full of beads surrounding me. I've graduated from dinner plates to a beading board (Oh sweet heavenly piece of plastic with fuzzyness on the top to hold all those beads in place and in order! Oh miracle of design.. Oh savior of my sanity and supplies. I love this thing!) and I'm balancing that on my lap while ignoring this horrible crick in my back while mixing those colors and sizes and textures. I'm perfectly at peace and pooking my face so hard that I may actually turn into a duck.
This is my bliss. This is my creative process at it's finest and sometimes the only happy point of my stressful days. When I decided to make jewelry for the purpose of selling it instead of giving it away, this is exactly what I envisioned. I spend my days off on wild bead hunts, both online and in stores, pawing through everything I can find for that just right color and size before I scamper home to make something pretty. This, in short, is a heck of a lot of fun.
But what they never tell you is that there is a dark side. Oh yes, a dark side.
Marketing: So over the course of a day I churn out a whole bunch of stuff I love while wearing my favorite piece of the day around my neck and sometimes tiara style around my head. Don't you dare judge, you know you'd do it too! Then the sun comes out. It's picture time.
The picture process is probably the most amusing part of the day for my neighbors. I know they've watched me, I know they think I'm batsh*t crazy. I have the perfect outfit for setting off the necklaces, I wrap a white scarf I have from Paris around my midsection and put on a cute little white twill-ish spring jacket I bought on a whim and never wear. Side note- the jacket is so inappropriate for winter and the scarf covers my ta's and that's about it. So here I go, running out into the snow and stand squarely halfway up my walk, turning at the right angle to face my neighbor's house which is where the sun is. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. All they can see is that I'm wearing pajama pants, a belly shirt with fringe and a little white blazer, photographing myself roughly at noon each day. Did I mention the heels? I live in black heels. It keeps those pesky pj pants out of the snow.
Click. Run into the house, freezing. Change necklaces. Back outside. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. Try not to imagine what the man next door who is shoveling thinks. I repeat this process for roughly 20 minutes until I see the neighbors calling the local mental health clinic. Next comes the pictures of the pieces on their own. I use an old cream colored sweater and a cutting board as my background and I tromp out, not fully in pajamas and heels and bend over the three foot high snow bank with my behind squarely pointed at the neighbor's house I was just facing. There are plows up the street. I pretend not to notice that they are watching. They look seriously amused but I can't be bothered, I'm working!
Click, arrange. Click, angle myself and my rump differently, step on pj pants with heels, pull down pj pants slightly and moon the street. Yank up the waist band and pretend I don't hear the plow guys. Click, arrange, zoom, click. Roughly 20 pictures per piece later, it's back in the house. I'm snow blind but ready for the next part... now the fun really begins.
Stay tuned for the rest of the dark side of beading.
I've got to stop for now.
-the little miss milyssabeth
So I'm struggling with the dual nature of this beading business beast...
It seems like a constant struggle between the creative process and the selling half of things; it's like being two people at once!
Making: So here I am, back on the bead eating couch, happy as a clam with my three tackle boxes and one tin full of beads surrounding me. I've graduated from dinner plates to a beading board (Oh sweet heavenly piece of plastic with fuzzyness on the top to hold all those beads in place and in order! Oh miracle of design.. Oh savior of my sanity and supplies. I love this thing!) and I'm balancing that on my lap while ignoring this horrible crick in my back while mixing those colors and sizes and textures. I'm perfectly at peace and pooking my face so hard that I may actually turn into a duck.
This is my bliss. This is my creative process at it's finest and sometimes the only happy point of my stressful days. When I decided to make jewelry for the purpose of selling it instead of giving it away, this is exactly what I envisioned. I spend my days off on wild bead hunts, both online and in stores, pawing through everything I can find for that just right color and size before I scamper home to make something pretty. This, in short, is a heck of a lot of fun.
But what they never tell you is that there is a dark side. Oh yes, a dark side.
Marketing: So over the course of a day I churn out a whole bunch of stuff I love while wearing my favorite piece of the day around my neck and sometimes tiara style around my head. Don't you dare judge, you know you'd do it too! Then the sun comes out. It's picture time.
The picture process is probably the most amusing part of the day for my neighbors. I know they've watched me, I know they think I'm batsh*t crazy. I have the perfect outfit for setting off the necklaces, I wrap a white scarf I have from Paris around my midsection and put on a cute little white twill-ish spring jacket I bought on a whim and never wear. Side note- the jacket is so inappropriate for winter and the scarf covers my ta's and that's about it. So here I go, running out into the snow and stand squarely halfway up my walk, turning at the right angle to face my neighbor's house which is where the sun is. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. All they can see is that I'm wearing pajama pants, a belly shirt with fringe and a little white blazer, photographing myself roughly at noon each day. Did I mention the heels? I live in black heels. It keeps those pesky pj pants out of the snow.
Click. Run into the house, freezing. Change necklaces. Back outside. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. Try not to imagine what the man next door who is shoveling thinks. I repeat this process for roughly 20 minutes until I see the neighbors calling the local mental health clinic. Next comes the pictures of the pieces on their own. I use an old cream colored sweater and a cutting board as my background and I tromp out, not fully in pajamas and heels and bend over the three foot high snow bank with my behind squarely pointed at the neighbor's house I was just facing. There are plows up the street. I pretend not to notice that they are watching. They look seriously amused but I can't be bothered, I'm working!
Click, arrange. Click, angle myself and my rump differently, step on pj pants with heels, pull down pj pants slightly and moon the street. Yank up the waist band and pretend I don't hear the plow guys. Click, arrange, zoom, click. Roughly 20 pictures per piece later, it's back in the house. I'm snow blind but ready for the next part... now the fun really begins.
Stay tuned for the rest of the dark side of beading.
I've got to stop for now.
-the little miss milyssabeth
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
So this is how you blog?
Good Morning!
So here I am starting up the necessary blog for my current beading venture.
It's funny, this whole thing started years ago as Christmas presents and being broke. My mother loves necklaces and has kept every little thing I've ever made to an absurd point. I can remember being 6 or so and absolutely furious with her because I discovered the "house" I'd made for Santa out of taped together striped drinking straws tucked away in a closet. I could not believe that she would actually steal and keep something I had made for Santa! Obviously there was going to be some sadness at the North Pole because the Big Guy in red was lacking a stripey straw house made with love and scotch tape. What I didn't realize is that my mother was not a covetous thief but rather a staunch supporter of anything I put together. This went on through all of my life so far, I am sure somewhere she can dig up the hat and beard Abraham Lincoln costume I made out of folded together notebook paper (I'd forgotten I had a "dress-up report" and decided that I could fake it by playing Arts and Crafts during Math) or my Clara Barton puppet which was fashioned from an eyelash curler. My mother's love of whatever I make has led to endless handmade Christmas gifts, moving up from the straw house for Santa to the past three years worth of necklaces.
It's the same process every time. I pick out a pendant that I think she will love and then I head to the nearest craft store with that pendant in hand. I stand in the beading aisle for roughly an hour, holding the pendant up to every bead there, debating what I am supposed to use for wire (the year I used sewing thread made for a very short lived gift) and trying to figure out what clasp to use (because seriously, how are you supposed to get the clasp attached if you can't tie wire?). Store employees begin to circle like tiger sharks, eyeballing me as I pick up every strand of beads and smoosh them together trying to get a feel from how they go. The longer I stay and mutter to myself, the closer to me the employees wander to "clean" and I just want to turn and say "Yes, yes, I know you think I'm shoplifting because I've picked up everything and put it down twice but I'm not. I'm creating. Or I'm trying. I think. Wait, does this color go with this one?"
I will finally carefully make my way to the register with my purchases spurting through my fingers. I never remember to get a basket because I always think "Oh, I'm just going to grab a few little beads". Unfortunately, it is never a few beads, it's everything I think will look great together and a few things I'm not sure about, but better safe than sorry! I play the same game with every cashier; I say "Oh, wait, wait... I think I may have gone overboard! Can we just ring up these few things first because these are the ones I really need and then we can go from there?" This is simply my way of reassuring myself, and the poor cashier, that I am going to be choosy and frugal about this whole purchase. This is also a complete joke because I have NEVER put anything back, even when the total soared way above what I expected. If I walk one of those sparkling strands of potential up to the register, it is coming home with me. I can't help thinking how much I might regret not having kept that small pack of nifty little blue beads with the metallic swirlies that don't go with anything. Who am I to judge? I might find a spot for them someday!
So out the door I go with a very small bag and a very long receipt, leaving the annoyed and usually smocked cashier to snap her gum while make faces at the back of my head. The other employees can now stop circling that possible robber/crazy lady in the bead section and swarm upon whatever other hobbyist is taking just a little too long making choice. At stop lights on the ride home, I will pull out some of the beads or charms and hold them up to my windshield to get a really good idea of how they look. I will also draw really confused stares from other cars.
So, at home and ready to go is when I realize that I have nothing to actually put the beads in. Meaning that I should have probably picked up one of those fantastically useful looking organizers but I really just couldn't carry anymore and I thought that the girl making sure I wasn't stealing was going to have an aneurysm if I didn't move it along. So all the beads go splashing around on one of my biggest dinner plates and I go from there. Now, glass beads on ceramic dinner plates have some fairly interesting properties. Number one, they slide constantly. Mostly the direction they slide in is toward the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Number two, they fascinate cats. I have two cats. When something fascinates a cat, the cat likes to bat the item with its paw until the item slides. Usually onto the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Lastly, beads on dinner plates are actually invisible to boyfriends. If your boyfriend approaches the couch and there is a dinner plate full of beads, he will be physically unable to see it and will sit on top of it. When this happens, the plate will tips and those fun-loving beads will slide off. Oh, you guessed it! Onto the floor and inbetween the couch cushions. By the time I finish any project, I have lost approximately one third of the beads I started with to my carnivorous carpet and couch. If I ever run really low on supplies, I'm just going to tip the couch upside down and shake it.
There is the actual beading process, but I am not even going to get into that part. Just imagine Sisyphus and his rock, only I have many beads and a piece of wire to push them onto instead of a hill to push them up. Don't get me wrong, I really do love every minute of it but there is a lot of stringing and re-stringing and swearing and I start to feel like my fingers are covered in Crisco when I'm dealing with seed beads after an hour or so. I also have the most ridiculous habit of making what my boyfriend calls the "pook face" when I'm in deep concentration. If you'd like to get a good idea of what my creative process looks like, please imagine a 28 year old woman hunched over a dinner plate full of beads with her lips puckered and curled up in a sort of snarl so that it touches the underside of her nose poking with a wire at a bead that keeps slipping out of her fingers while two cats watch in amusement. This is how the magic happens.
After all of this, I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy. I put it on, pop over to the mirror and twirl... until I realize that I missed a bead in the pattern. Yep, there it is, right in the middle. One little bead that no one would notice. Seriously. Who would stare at the necklace and spot that there are only five aqua blue seed beads where there should be six? I should just leave it. It's fine. And I do leave it, until it gnaws away at my brain at one in the morning and I get up to restring it. So after all of THIS, now I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy and I can go back to bed.
It's all worth it, it's a small price to pay for seeing my mother hold up something I spent so much time on and put so much love (and aggravation) into and look over at me with pride. It's one of the best moments of the entire year. I try to bask as much in it's glow as I can before it pops two seconds later when she sighs deeply and invariably says, "Oh Melissa, it's so beautiful. You are wasting so much talent. Why don't you sell these?!". She puts it on and calls me every time she gets a compliment on her jewelry to repeat that same phrase over and over. This year, I finally felt like I'd beaten the system because when she turned to me and utted that deflating phrase I just smiled and said, "I am, Mom."
It does make me happy, because I get to treat everyone like they are family and make jewelry with as much attention and care as I would give if it was for my mother. Every time something is sold, I get that happy Christmas morning glow because I can imagine seeing someone getting their mail and opening something beautiful. Granted, it's a mailbox and not a Christmsas tree, but let's not spoil the mood. This opporunity is worth the slippery dinner plates, the suspicious employees and the grumpy clerks. It's worth the curious cats and the Crisco fingers. It's even worth battling my hungry couch, because I have the chance to make someone happy. Let's hope this works out!
- the little miss milyssabeth!
So here I am starting up the necessary blog for my current beading venture.
It's funny, this whole thing started years ago as Christmas presents and being broke. My mother loves necklaces and has kept every little thing I've ever made to an absurd point. I can remember being 6 or so and absolutely furious with her because I discovered the "house" I'd made for Santa out of taped together striped drinking straws tucked away in a closet. I could not believe that she would actually steal and keep something I had made for Santa! Obviously there was going to be some sadness at the North Pole because the Big Guy in red was lacking a stripey straw house made with love and scotch tape. What I didn't realize is that my mother was not a covetous thief but rather a staunch supporter of anything I put together. This went on through all of my life so far, I am sure somewhere she can dig up the hat and beard Abraham Lincoln costume I made out of folded together notebook paper (I'd forgotten I had a "dress-up report" and decided that I could fake it by playing Arts and Crafts during Math) or my Clara Barton puppet which was fashioned from an eyelash curler. My mother's love of whatever I make has led to endless handmade Christmas gifts, moving up from the straw house for Santa to the past three years worth of necklaces.
It's the same process every time. I pick out a pendant that I think she will love and then I head to the nearest craft store with that pendant in hand. I stand in the beading aisle for roughly an hour, holding the pendant up to every bead there, debating what I am supposed to use for wire (the year I used sewing thread made for a very short lived gift) and trying to figure out what clasp to use (because seriously, how are you supposed to get the clasp attached if you can't tie wire?). Store employees begin to circle like tiger sharks, eyeballing me as I pick up every strand of beads and smoosh them together trying to get a feel from how they go. The longer I stay and mutter to myself, the closer to me the employees wander to "clean" and I just want to turn and say "Yes, yes, I know you think I'm shoplifting because I've picked up everything and put it down twice but I'm not. I'm creating. Or I'm trying. I think. Wait, does this color go with this one?"
I will finally carefully make my way to the register with my purchases spurting through my fingers. I never remember to get a basket because I always think "Oh, I'm just going to grab a few little beads". Unfortunately, it is never a few beads, it's everything I think will look great together and a few things I'm not sure about, but better safe than sorry! I play the same game with every cashier; I say "Oh, wait, wait... I think I may have gone overboard! Can we just ring up these few things first because these are the ones I really need and then we can go from there?" This is simply my way of reassuring myself, and the poor cashier, that I am going to be choosy and frugal about this whole purchase. This is also a complete joke because I have NEVER put anything back, even when the total soared way above what I expected. If I walk one of those sparkling strands of potential up to the register, it is coming home with me. I can't help thinking how much I might regret not having kept that small pack of nifty little blue beads with the metallic swirlies that don't go with anything. Who am I to judge? I might find a spot for them someday!
So out the door I go with a very small bag and a very long receipt, leaving the annoyed and usually smocked cashier to snap her gum while make faces at the back of my head. The other employees can now stop circling that possible robber/crazy lady in the bead section and swarm upon whatever other hobbyist is taking just a little too long making choice. At stop lights on the ride home, I will pull out some of the beads or charms and hold them up to my windshield to get a really good idea of how they look. I will also draw really confused stares from other cars.
So, at home and ready to go is when I realize that I have nothing to actually put the beads in. Meaning that I should have probably picked up one of those fantastically useful looking organizers but I really just couldn't carry anymore and I thought that the girl making sure I wasn't stealing was going to have an aneurysm if I didn't move it along. So all the beads go splashing around on one of my biggest dinner plates and I go from there. Now, glass beads on ceramic dinner plates have some fairly interesting properties. Number one, they slide constantly. Mostly the direction they slide in is toward the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Number two, they fascinate cats. I have two cats. When something fascinates a cat, the cat likes to bat the item with its paw until the item slides. Usually onto the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Lastly, beads on dinner plates are actually invisible to boyfriends. If your boyfriend approaches the couch and there is a dinner plate full of beads, he will be physically unable to see it and will sit on top of it. When this happens, the plate will tips and those fun-loving beads will slide off. Oh, you guessed it! Onto the floor and inbetween the couch cushions. By the time I finish any project, I have lost approximately one third of the beads I started with to my carnivorous carpet and couch. If I ever run really low on supplies, I'm just going to tip the couch upside down and shake it.
There is the actual beading process, but I am not even going to get into that part. Just imagine Sisyphus and his rock, only I have many beads and a piece of wire to push them onto instead of a hill to push them up. Don't get me wrong, I really do love every minute of it but there is a lot of stringing and re-stringing and swearing and I start to feel like my fingers are covered in Crisco when I'm dealing with seed beads after an hour or so. I also have the most ridiculous habit of making what my boyfriend calls the "pook face" when I'm in deep concentration. If you'd like to get a good idea of what my creative process looks like, please imagine a 28 year old woman hunched over a dinner plate full of beads with her lips puckered and curled up in a sort of snarl so that it touches the underside of her nose poking with a wire at a bead that keeps slipping out of her fingers while two cats watch in amusement. This is how the magic happens.
After all of this, I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy. I put it on, pop over to the mirror and twirl... until I realize that I missed a bead in the pattern. Yep, there it is, right in the middle. One little bead that no one would notice. Seriously. Who would stare at the necklace and spot that there are only five aqua blue seed beads where there should be six? I should just leave it. It's fine. And I do leave it, until it gnaws away at my brain at one in the morning and I get up to restring it. So after all of THIS, now I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy and I can go back to bed.
It's all worth it, it's a small price to pay for seeing my mother hold up something I spent so much time on and put so much love (and aggravation) into and look over at me with pride. It's one of the best moments of the entire year. I try to bask as much in it's glow as I can before it pops two seconds later when she sighs deeply and invariably says, "Oh Melissa, it's so beautiful. You are wasting so much talent. Why don't you sell these?!". She puts it on and calls me every time she gets a compliment on her jewelry to repeat that same phrase over and over. This year, I finally felt like I'd beaten the system because when she turned to me and utted that deflating phrase I just smiled and said, "I am, Mom."
It does make me happy, because I get to treat everyone like they are family and make jewelry with as much attention and care as I would give if it was for my mother. Every time something is sold, I get that happy Christmas morning glow because I can imagine seeing someone getting their mail and opening something beautiful. Granted, it's a mailbox and not a Christmsas tree, but let's not spoil the mood. This opporunity is worth the slippery dinner plates, the suspicious employees and the grumpy clerks. It's worth the curious cats and the Crisco fingers. It's even worth battling my hungry couch, because I have the chance to make someone happy. Let's hope this works out!
- the little miss milyssabeth!
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